RIFLING OF INDIAN GRAVES.
301
of On-daig (the crow), and, leaving his warriors behind, he walked towards
the wigwam of On-daig, who came out, with his pipe of peace in one hand,
and his war-club in the other. On-daig offered his pipe to the white chief
to smoke, who put his sword behind him in one hand, and raised his hat
with the other. On-daig never had seen a white man's hat before, and,
thinking the white chief was going to strike him with it, drew his war-
club. They soon, however, understood each other, and smoked the pipe
together."
But a few months after the death of this fine Indian I
was on a visit to London, and while walking in Piccadilly
was accosted by an old acquaintance, who in our conversa-
tion informed me that the skeleton of my old friend the
War-chief had been preserved, and he seemed to think it
might be an interesting thing for me to see. The struggle
between the ebullition of indignation and the quiescence of
disgust rendered me for the moment almost unfit for a
reply ; and I withheld it for a moment, until the poor Indian's
ideas of hyaenas before described had time to run through
my mind, and some other similar reflections, when I calmly
replied, " I have no doubt but the skeleton is a subject of
interest, but I shall not have time to see it."
My friend and I parted here, and I went on through
Piccadilly, and I know not where, meditating on the virtues
of scientific and mercenary man. I thought of the heroic
Osceola, who was captured when he was disarmed and was
bearing a white flag in his hand; who died a prisoner of war,
and whose head was a few months afterwards offered for sale
in the city of New York ! I thought also of the thousands
of Indian graves I had seen on the frontier thrown open
by sacrilegious hands for the skulls and trinkets they en-
closed, to which the retiring relatives were lurking back to
take the last glance of, and to mingle their last tears
over, with the horror of seeing the bones of their fathers
and children strewed over the ground by hands too averse
to labour and too ruthless to cover them again.
I was here forcibly struck with the fitness of Jim's re-
marks about the hysenas, of " their resemblance to Chemo-
kimons or pale-faces," when I  told him that they lived by